Mater Hospital

Mater Health Services North Queensland provides hospital care and outpatient medical services to the city of Townsville and surrounding areas of North Queensland, Australia. The region has a population of approximately 200,000 people, and a tropical climate. Mater Hospital, an acute care facility, required a chiller solution that would provide reliable comfort to patients and staff while also delivering superior efficiency, as measured both in energy consumption and power demand. While these two measurements are closely related, consumption represents the total amount of electricity used, whereas demand indicates the immediate rate of use, an important factor in areas such as North Queensland, where peak usage rates represent a significant increase in cost. With this in mind, Mater Hospital decided to upgrade its chiller plant, and tasked design consultants McClintock Engineering to find the most efficient chiller solution.

Project Solution

McClintock Engineering selected two Carrier 23XRV water-cooled screw chillers because of that unit’s superior efficiency performance and low operating costs. After modeling several possible chiller configurations, McClintock Engineering and Carrier selected the series counterflow arrangement as the most efficient option. Early data on the installed system suggests an energy consumption savings of approximately 14 percent (kWh), with demand reduced by 46 percent (kVa). The new chiller plant also provides N+1 redundancy, the highest standard for healthcare applications, and leaves room for the hospital to expand.